Soldsie

Welcome to the social world of selling. Soldsie is a sales platform that turns your Facebook Page into a virtual storefront: you post products on the Timeline, and fans buy just by commenting "sold." Follow our blog to get the latest dish on e-commerce news and Soldsie updates. Happy selling! var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-35214808-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

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5 Things the Oscars Taught Us About Social Media Marketing

Last night, Oscars gawkers were just as glued to their Internet connections as they were to their television sets. Tweets with hashtags #Oscars2013, #redcarpet, and #OTRC kept up a running commentary of the glitziest award show of the year, and blogs were abuzz with the latest updates.

Write intriguing headlines. Case in point: several blogs broke the news that Helen Hunt's dress was, indeed, from the fast-fashion emporium H&M, but Refinery29 kept the punchline under wraps with "This Is the Most Surprising Red-Carpet Gown We've Seen In Years."

Don't be afraid of a little 'tude. No one wants to read bland writing; take a page from The Guardian's live blog of red carpet fashion, which offered such gems like: "Amy Adams has turned up, the lovely, marvelous Amy Adams. I'm going to be blunt here, I think her dress is ridiculous: it looks like it was designed by a five year old, the skirt looks like she made it out of dead pigeons and the colour is totally blah on this frankly gorgeous woman."

Ask questions, take polls, and argue a side. Twitter is the perfect forum for real-time conversations, and using popular hashtags connects you to new audiences. One of the running hot topics was whether or not Seth MacFarlane had the chops to tickle the Academy's funny bone, and everyone had an opinion.

Offer backstage access. Consumers love getting the backstory, the inside dish, the B-reel, the bloopers, etc. Humanize your brand by saying hello on Twitter or Facebook with a "backstage" photo, a la @TheAcademy: celebrities making funny faces at the camera go a long way in loosening up a potentially stuffy brand.

Find ways for your brand to relate. Take advantage of the current talk of the town (holidays, award shows, sports games, news) and offer commentary from your brand's standpoint. Bare Minerals achieves this nicely by commenting on celebrity makeup. (A word of caution: don't overstretch, lest you be included in a list of 17 (mostly failed) Brand Tweets.)

What struck you about social media's impact on the Oscars experience? Let us know in the comments below, or tweet us @soldsie!

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Customers' Choice: How To Drive Engagement Through Product Polls

This is the last installment of a weekly series. Catch our past Facebook marketing posts on getting likes, shares, and comments; updating with eye-catching content; and games to play with your fans.

Emilie M Handbags prepares for spring with this poll that pits metallic, pastel, and floral prints against each other:

Amaranth Collection tests the waters by asking customers, "Love it or leave it," with the verdict determining whether the item will appear in stock:

Include a question as a caption to your next product preview photo to increase user likes, comments, and shares on your Page--remember, the more often a fan interacts with your brand, the higher the likelihood of your content appearing in the News Feed. Let us know how it works in the comments below!

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All Fun and Games: Status Updates That Engage Fans

This is the third installment of a weekly series. Watch this space for more updates on Facebook best practices!

With likes, shares, and comments acting as the Facebook currency, it's important to know how to get them, and how to nab your fans' attention. After building a loyal following, the next step is to create a community that interacts with and trusts your brand. 

THIS WEEK'S TIP: Post a Challenge

Trivia games about movies, music, sports, etc. are surefire ways to get fans to linger on your page. And, when you make the question about your company, you get the added bonus of tying the game to your brand. 

Soldsie customers are fashionistas, which is why they love "Who Wore It Best" comparisons. You might create your own feature by asking friends to pose, or encouraging fans to send in photos of themselves wearing or carrying your items.

Post an intriguing photo with the challenge for users to "caption this"! You can delve online for a image, or feature your product in the scenario by taking your own picture.

"Would you rather" questions are hilarious thought experiments that users can't help but answer. This one wants to know, would you rather be hungover for the rest of your life or have an interminable itch on your back? (We pick itch!)

Fill-in-the-blank updates angle for fans' creativity. Post a product photo with the line, If I could wear this dress to any spot in the world right now, I would travel to ______________.

Celebrity "guess who" posts play on popular culture. Zoom in on a photo of a star--perhaps they're wearing an item similar to your product--and offer a clue as to who it could be.

Bonus tip: Add some mystery to your update by concealing the game until your status gets a certain number of likes!  

What are some fun status updates that connect with your fans? Let us know in the comments below!

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Soldsie Spotlight: Back to the Roots

BTTR produces grow-your-own mushroom kits and home aquaponics gardens (mini ecosystems that recycle fish tank waste to fertilize plants). Since its start, BTTR has grown to offer its products all across the United States, generating enormous buzz--including kudos from the White House-- for its contributions to sustainability, education, and community-building around growing delicious, nutritious food.

Mai-Ling Garcia, Business Developer at BTTR, describes how Soldsie's platform for selling on Facebook has created more opportunities for growth. "We thought it was really cool to integrate sales directly onto Facebook to capture immediate sales and expand our following," she says. 

Social media has taken a leading role in BTTR's development, so much so that Facebook and Twitter have become main sources of traffic to the company website. "Our social media takes an increasingly important role in expanding awareness and influences in our online market," Mai-Ling explains. "Our new Aquaponics Garden developed the majority of its momentum through Facebook. The viral nature of Facebook and Twitter make it so easy for any idea--or product--to spread quickly and start gaining a foothold in the consumer world." 

Soldsie is thrilled to support BTTR and applauds its core values: Hustle, Passion, Family, and Universal Happiness. "We like new ideas, we take risks, and we care for people," affirms Mai-Ling. Looking forward, BTTR plans to continue growing the audience for its ground-breaking home aquaponics kit while dreaming up new products that convey the BTTR mission. We, for one, are excited to see what's next, and can't wait to be the first to comment "SOLD."

Visit the Back to the Roots Facebook page to support the vision!

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Auto-fill Product Description

In the rush of uploading products for a sale, Soldsie retailers don't always have the time to copy information about price, shipping, add-ons, and options into the product description box--and now you won't have to!

Busy Facebook sellers will be happy to hear that Soldsie now auto-fills the product description as soon as you enter text. We're doing away with that extra work, and you won't have to worry about leaving out key information when uploading new items. 

Prefer a more personalized product description? Keen on writing enticing copy? Just click on "Edit manually" to free up the text box to your creativity and type away.

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7 Posts That Get People's Attention: Facebook Marketing Solutions

This is the second installment of a weekly series. Watch this space for more updates on Facebook best practices!

THIS WEEK'S TIP: Publish Great Content (Try These Posts!)

A cartoon is good for laughs and breaks up the usual stream of content in users' News Feeds. Pick from your favorite panels, be it Calvin & Hobbes or Dilbert; this one's from xkcd.com.

Someecards are always a hit--and the best part is, you can create your own to suit your needs!

Keep things grounded with some words of wisdom or an inspirational quote. Try to incorporate images, too, since photo posts do better than plain text updates.

Internet memes go viral for a reason--they're easy to digest, fun, and infinitely share-able. Poke around The Daily Meme for some gems. We like this existentially challenged creature:

We just can't help but snoop on celebrities, which is why celebrity rumors, photos, and fashion generate a lot of buzz. Just look at how cute Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio were back in the day!

Whether you've just eaten, are eating, or are planning to eat, much of daily life revolves around food. Share your favorite recipes or culinary adventures. Check this out--a cake with noodles.

People wear the darndest things, and everyone's got an opinion. Ask your fans what they think about a polarizing item, or fish for suggestions on how to wear it.

Whether you're posting a photo of a kitten, the lyrics to your favorite song, or a picture you took on Instagram, remember that your Facebook Page is a branded space. Take advantage of the platform to strengthen your company's personality while having fun and connecting with your fans.

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Editable Add-Ons

A little while ago, we introduced product add-ons and editable invoices. Uploading your product with add-on options configures Soldsie to account for the extra expense. Now, the customer check-out page has gotten a bit of a facelift!

Before a fan pays the invoice, he or she now has the option to edit not just the desired quantity, but also the add-ons customizing the item. In the below example, Benny Buyer has decided to bump up the number of items to three, each decorated with the option of wooden buttons. Once he hits "save," the order total will automatically adjust. This flexibility accounts for customers who change their mind about their order after commenting, thus saving you time and energy in the customer service department.

Please note that if a customer checks "monogram" on the invoice, the letter(s) chosen must have already been designated in the comment!

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5 Ways to Cure the Fan View Blues: Facebook Marketing Solutions

This is the first installment of a weekly series. Watch this space for more updates on Facebook best practices!

The good news is, you're not alone in this. Facebook wants to keep its content stream interesting, so it's more carefully curating News Feeds for everyone. As a Facebook user with a personal account, you know intuitively when a post is "successful"--that is, when your friends and family members like, share, and comment on it. You're motivated to update your status with relevant links, hilarious photos, and inspiring videos because you're personally connected to your network.

As a Facebook business page owner, that's not the case. Even so, the powers that be in the algorithm require that you value your fans in the same way that you value your personal connections. Facebook knows when you "get it" (i.e. receive likes, shares, and comments) and when you "bomb out" (i.e. receive unlikes, hides, and spam notices).

This comes as no surprise, but Soldsie spends a lot of time on Facebook. A lot. And we’d like to share some tips and tricks from some of our favorite business pages--pages that get us (and many, many more of their fans) to like, share, and comment on their content.

THIS WEEK'S TIP: Angle for Popularity Points

Think of each action and engagement as a point, and think of each post as having the potential to earn three points--a like, a share, and a comment per fan. The more points you score in the Facebook algorithm, the happier Facebook thinks  you're making your fans. Once the system recognizes that you're popular amongst your followers, it'll allow your updates to surface on the News Feed more frequently. 

This scoring system can also be understood more granularly: if your photo updates are popular amongst twentysomething females, then that demographic will see your photo posts more often. By the same token, if middle-aged males never engage with your text updates, then that demographic will see that type of status drop off. (This isn't to say that you should cater to every kind of audience out there, but to know who you're speaking to.) Become best friends with your all-important Facebook Insights to get an understanding of who your core audience is and what they respond best to.

Bonus tip: Give special attention to virality, which is the percentage of users who engage with your post after having seen it. The higher the virality, the more points you've scored!

Here are some tried-and-true methods of earning points:

Ask politely. Here's a "Did You Know" moment: having a clear call to action in your post makes fans more inclined to like, share, and comment on your posts. Here's the data to prove it. 

Host a giveaway. Run a social media campaign the week before a sale and ask users to like, share, and comment on a certain post for the chance to win a free item, or another enticing prize. Make sure to deliver the goods, though--fans will be disappointed if you don't, and that's a brand-killer.

Make it a free-for-all. You can also extend the "like, share, comment" campaign and make every update you post fair game, not just one designated photo.

Offer discounts. Announce that you are waiving shipping fees or granting 10% off the purchase total for users who complete the "like, share, comment" trinity.

Set goals. It may be that your page is verging on your 1000th, 5000th, or 10000th like. Tell your fans that when you reach the benchmark, the person who likes your page and engages with your post will win a prize.

As often as possible, encourage your fans to give you multiple points--either directly (as part of a campaign), or through good ol' fashioned interesting posts.  You don't want to lose out on an opportunity to triply engage fans with each post. After a while, your followers will become accustomed to interacting with your page--a good habit to form.

Facebook gurus, speak up: what kinds of posts have spurred the most engagement for you? Tell us in the comments!

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User Happiness Features

Good things happen in threes...or sixes. That's right, in pursuit of user happiness, we've introduced some improvements to the Soldsie dashboard and fixed some pesky bugs.

To make the settings page easier to find, we coaxed it out of its hiding place in the drop-down menu and made it a link in the top navigation bar.

You can now choose to order comments by oldest first or newest first.

Looking to see all comments for a particular item? Enter the product name in the comment search bar to track them down.

Sometimes one reminder just isn't enough. Send up to three automated invoice reminders at intervals of your choosing.

Partial refunds on PayPal are now possible--no more refunding entire orders.

Printing invoices from the Soldsie dashboard now generates packing slips in order instead of at random.

We hope these updates make Soldsie even more fun and intuitive to use, and that you continue to help us shape the app with every suggestion and shout-out!

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Enable Prepay for Sold Out Items

Soldsie flash sales draw fans to your Page, but some customers come away empty-handed in the scramble. We're excited to announce Prepay, a wait-list system that allows customers to be charged as soon as a coveted item is back in stock. Prepaying customers receive priority over other commenters, and you won't have to send another invoice for oversold items!

To activate Prepay, hit "Grant PayPal Permissions" or "Accept Credit Cards," and then select "Yes" under Invoice Prepay.

You'll need to set the parameters for Prepay. "Authorized for" specifies how long the payment will be held; if the item doesn't come back in stock in that duration, the authorized payment becomes voided. "Bump pending invoices after" specifies how long an item will be held for a pending invoice before it becomes voided; the item then goes to the next prepaying customer.

Customers who comment "sold" on a sold-out item will receive an invoice with instructions to "Get on Standby." They will only be charged if the item becomes available within the specified "authorized for" duration.

This exciting development means that your customers get more of what they want, and you spend less time dealing with unpaid invoices! 

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5 Social Media Resolutions for 2013

As we enter the new year, we arrive at a vantage point for the state of online and social media marketing. With predictions and trends abounding for 2013, we're starting things off with some resolutions that take advantage of the changing social media landscape.

Read our guest post, 5 Social Media Resolutions for 2013, on Small Biz Lady Melinda Emerson's blog! Find out if you've been making the most out of your social media accounts--and resolve to make the changes that will help your company grow sales.

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Product Add-Ons and Editable Invoices

With the new year comes new features: Soldsie is pleased to kick off 2013 with two added capabilities that make sure the customer gets what she wants. Now when you upload a product to your dashboard, you can specify add-ons that customize it for the buyer. Does that sweater come monogrammed? Can you add a trinket to that charm bracelet? Make those add-ons available by setting the price and asking your fans to indicate their choice in the comments!

When you create an invoice for a customer, you’ll also be able to adjust the price by clicking the box next to the desired add-on. In this example, rustic wood buttons contribute to the sweater’s considerable “aww” factor.

For even more transparency, fans see exactly what they ordered when they view their invoices, including the add-ons. They can also edit the product quantity before they check out! This saves some pesky back-and-forth between you and the customer and leaves you to manage your booming new year sales.

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'Tis the Season! Soldsie Supports Donations with Khan Academy

This holiday season, Soldsie is celebrating with an exciting new feature--donations.

That's right, your favorite social commerce platform now automates donations just as powerfully as it supports selling on Facebook, and we're thrilled to name Khan Academy our pilot donation program.

To donate to Khan Academy, click here and comment "donate" to help empower education worldwide. Billed as a global classroom, Khan Academy is a nonprofit that provides free online resources for topics ranging from math and science, to finance and economics, to the humanities. Khan Academy has delivered over 200 million lessons to date and continues to be an invaluable resource for students and teachers.

Today at 2 p.m. PST, our platform will support donations through the Khan Academy Facebook Page. See the post to support an educational treasure--any contribution, large or small, makes a huge difference!

We're excited to see the impact our Soldsie community can make. Donate $10 today by writing "donate" in the comments, or adjust the amount by writing "donate $X." Let's see what social media can do for social activism.

Thanks a million!

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Pending Invoices and Credit Card Testing

In your Soldsie dashboard, invoice status updates are getting a facelift! Instead of the remind option for customer invoices, they now read pending after we do the legwork for you. To set the timeframe for automated invoice reminders and cancelations, update your options on the settings page and hit save.

  Psst--we're also on the hunt for credit card testers! Want to be among the first to accept credit cards through WePay? Reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll enable your account. Your customers will thank you.

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Soldsie Spotlight: Suz's Retail Therapy

Suz Karel of Suz's Retail Therapy carries an infectious love for retail passed on through two generations of women. "Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth; well, I was born with a hanger in my hand," says the self-proclaimed Retail Therapist. "Some people run, some people P90X, some people golf. Shopping is a sport for me. I only run if I'm grabbing a must-have sale item!"

After leaving a fast-paced corporate job in order to be a full-time mom to two boys, Suz found herself missing her business life. Taking her children shopping wasn't a cakewalk, either. "One memorable day I peeked out of my dressing room only to see my boys running around a boutique with hankie pankies on their heads," recounts Suz. "It was impossible to shop!"

Marrying her professional acumen and her passion for smart shopping, Suz recruited a business partner and founded women's clothing and accessory stores in Scottsdale, Arizona. When her husband's job transferred the family to Northern California, however, Suz traded in her brick-and-mortar store for an online Facebook storefront in March 2012. "I quickly realized that online auctions and social media are a must to be successful and effective in today's business world," says Suz of the transition.

Social commerce, however, required a different kind of organization. Suz struggled with the time-consuming tasks of posting product pictures, scheduling posts, invoicing, packaging, and shipping items. "As a small business, I have hired, fired, and re-hired my husband no less than ten times," quips Suz. When she found Soldsie, Suz was amazed at the hours shaved off operations, the conversion rate of buyers, and billing accuracy. Most valuable to her was the speed with which she met her orders and the credibility that service lent her new business.

Since using Soldsie, Suz has enjoyed a balanced integration of business and family life--to the point that her dining room now doubles as a warehouse for new deliveries, and the office a storage room for packing supplies. For her brand of funky statement pieces at more than reasonable prices, join Suz's fans on Thursdays at 7 p.m. PST for some retail therapy!

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They're Here! Automated Invoicing and Credit Card Payments Through WePay

The holiday shopping season is officially underway, and Soldsie is preparing merchants for huge growth in their Facebook comment sales. That's right--automated invoices are the newest option on the Settings page! Enable the auto invoice function so that your customers don't have to wait to complete their purchases; they'll receive an email confirmation as soon as they comment "sold." If they haven't registered, Soldsie comments on the product post with a reminder to do so. It gives a whole new meaning to your products "selling themselves."

Merchants also have the option to accept credit card payments by creating an account on WePay! Change your settings to allow credit card payments, then click on Accept Credit Cards to set up your store (WePay's transaction fees still apply). We're excited about this new capability and the doors it opens for customers without PayPal accounts.

This side of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, we know that online sales have topped 2011's figures by a high of 30.3%; not only that, but the face of e-commerce is changing, with more shoppers preferring to buy from their mobile devices. Take advantage of these new features, let us know what you think of them, and thanks for selling on Facebook with Soldsie!

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The Facebook Survival Guide: News Feed and Promoted Posts

Ever since Geoffrey Colon spilled the beans at Social@Ogilvy on September 25, brand owners and social strategists have been up in arms against Facebook’s changes to the ranking algorithm, which determines where—and if—a story shows up on a user’s News Feed. Unfortunately, the tune-up came at a steep cost to the Organic and Viral Reach of Facebook Pages, and the public had a thing or two to say about it. Star Trek superstar and pop personality George Takei complained on his Page to nearly 3 million fans. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban balked at the $3,000 price tag on a promoted post and announced a move to other social media outlets.

It isn't that Facebook is attacking brand pages, per se. The News Feed update incorporates the "report spam" and "hide" signals that allow users to curate the content they see; it only makes sense that negative feedback will negatively impact Reach. There's also the question of volume: not only have the number of Facebook users grown (now one billion strong), but Socialbakers reports that “businesses have been posting three more times in total than half a year ago, which means even tighter competition for News Feed real estate.” The algorithm had to adapt to keep delivering the freshest, most relevant posts for users.

To counteract a blow to brand visibility, it’s important to work smarter, not harder. Soldsie met with our extensive Facebook contacts to get the skinny on how promoted posts can work in tandem with the News Feed ranking algorithm--here's what we learned.

Regularly download your Facebook Insights to see negative feedback.

Facebook tracks each fan's history of engaging with your brand's posts in terms of Likes, Comments, Shares, and click-throughs; the more a fan responds to your posts, the more likely he or she will see content from you in the future. Conversely, if a Page consistently racks up negative feedback, it'll be docked for historical negative feedback rate.

That said, it's crucial to download your Facebook Insights on the post level to see how fans are responding to different types of content. The one caveat is that this number doesn't distinguish between the "hide" and "mark as spam" functions (photos, however, generally get tagged as spam more often than text-only posts).

Educate your fans about the Pages Feed.

From what we've seen, the Interests List just doesn't cut it in terms of collecting every product post into a single Soldsie Superfeed. The Pages Feed does a much better job of representing a fan's Liked brands, and it doesn't require the effort of manually adding Pages into separate Interests Lists. Get the word out to your customers!

As another measure, consider posting your sale as an album instead of individual products. This reduces clutter on your fans' News Feeds and sidesteps the risk of having an overwhelmed bystander begin to "hide" your posts. Accessory Concierge recently experimented with this and got a resounding hoorah about the new format.

Alternatively, try breaking up big sales into smaller ones that happen throughout the week. Merchants benefit from giving fans several opportunities to buy, and they avoid flooding their fans' News Feeds. Even when a user isn't participating in a particular comment auction, they'll be much friendlier to browsing through 20 scarves than through 60+.

Photos are still heavily weighted, but that doesn't keep them from getting old.

Yup, photos are still one of the most highly weighted post types across all users and Pages.  We understand your skepticism on this one: from the looks of it, it does seem like text-only status updates have been inching up the ranks. What most users overlook, however, is the fact that the algorithm learns from user interaction with each type of post from a brand. Merchants who feel that their photo posts have been demoted are probably feeling the effects of historically unpopular photo posts. Lastly, keep in mind that post type plays a part whether or not the update is promoted.

To make sure that your photos remain popular, shake up the ol' routine. Post engaging non-product photos so that fans who are usually too shy to comment or "Like" just yet have a way to interact with your Page. Some old standbys are someecards, memes, and celebrity news--these tend to get the most traction.

Target the right audience for your promoted posts.

Start by targeting your audience by country and gender. Promoting a Soldsie product post to an international audience won't drive sales, and may actually impede your business by attracting spam comments.

Retailers can also target their product posts to fans who have already Liked or commented on a preview post. While the post still benefits from organic and viral Reach, this promotion makes sure that the fans who are most excited by the sale don't miss it. Merchants who run comment auctions may also be able to pay per conversion, a specification that is in the process of rolling out to advertisers. By paying per comment, you don't pay unless you make a sale!

Selectively promote the posts that matter most.

In the words of Kool and the Gang, celebrate good times (c'mon!). Selectively promote the posts that will give you the best ROI, ie. announcements, contests, and exciting products. Promoting each product post is actually counterproductive to increased exposure since the algorithm protects users from seeing too much content from one Page at a time. A flood of content from your brand will also dilute your fan's attention, and the low level of interaction will hurt your post distribution in the future.

In many ways, the new Facebook algorithm is a test of how well you know your fans: what kinds of posts engage them, how often are they willing to interact with your Page, and what times are they most active on Facebook? The ranking rewards brands that have established a relationship with their fans, which, in the large scheme of things, is a great direction for social commerce. To gauge the success of your content and optimize your product posts, we recommend using Crowdbooster, a free service that provides in-depth analysis of your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Top image: Facebook data visualization on photo-sharing